Much has been written about the incorporation of digital broadcasting receivers into mobile handheld terminals, such as mobile telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers and the like.
A system has been proposed in which data services are transmitted on a time-sliced, or time-multiplexed, basis allowing plural services to be transmitted at a given channel frequency. This has advantages for mobile terminals since their receivers only need to be powered and they only need to buffer, decode and process received data when data relating to the service of interest is being broadcast, and can be switched off at other times. This would normally result in a receiver being switched on for a relatively short period at regular intervals.
The present invention aims to provide a mechanism whereby the power consumption of data broadcast receivers can be further reduced.